Last night's Cochon555 brought together pig evangelists, butchers, winemakers and a large crowd of food lovers. Attendees feasted on the culinary delights from the five esteemed chefs while drinking Washington and Oregon wines. Those with iron-clad stomachs who stuck it out til the end were treated to chicharrones dipped in chocolate while John Sundstrom of Lark and Licorous was crowned the king of porcine for the second year in a row. His most notable bite: pork and shrimp sausage on a bed of pickled cucumber, plated in a trio along with pork belly on rice and a perfectly executed rillette. more ›

Lauren Thompson describes her chef de cuisine role at Café Juanita as the interpreter who takes chef Holly Smith’s ideas and transforms them into tangible dishes. Recently Smith came to her with an idea for a fallen squash soufflé, says Thompson. “Something we could bake ahead of time so it wouldn’t be too much of a hassle during service, but would taste fantastic.” more ›

Sunday was the big Cochon 555 event, featuring five pigs, five chefs, and five winemakers. Hundreds of pounds of pork available for eating, and we think we're still digesting some of it. With most of our blood away from the brains and instead the stomach, we present this rambling "piglet" recap of the porkfest. (Check Gastrolust for the full pig report, coming by Thursday.) more ›

Does "snout to tail" get you giddy? more ›

Look, we've been through this before, though not on Capitol Hill. If we hadn't just posted our ode to organ meats, a sonnet to spleen, we probably wouldn't care. But over at Slog, Stranger managing editor (and foodie) Bethany Jean Clement has written a couple of posts about the furor surrounding foie gras. Specifically that John Sundstrom at Lark refuses to cave in to a nutball lunatic fringe called the Northwest Animal Rights Network, NARN for short, unhappy about his menu to the point of picketing the restaurant once a week. The subject of the outrage: Lark serves foie gras. No different than thousands of restaurants around the country, and in the mainstream of European culinary tradition that recognizes foie gras as a delicacy. more ›